Election Commission To Announce Bihar Assembly Polls Schedule Today
The polls are expected to be held in fewer phases than 2020 as NDA and opposition parties have asked for the same.
Published : October 6, 2025 at 9:44 AM IST
New Delhi: The Election Commission of India will announce the schedule for Bihar assembly polls today (October 6, 2025). The announcement will take place during a press conference in the national capital at 4 pm.
The tenure of the 243-member Bihar Assembly is scheduled to end on November 22. Political parties have urged the EC to hold the polls immediately after the Chhath festival, which will be celebrated at the end of October, to ensure greater voter participation as a large number of people employed outside return home for festivities. While the ruling NDA has asked for a singh-phase election, the opposition wants the polls to be completed in two phases.
The 2020 assembly polls in the state were held in three phases under the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The much-awaited announcement takes place a day after CEC Kumar and Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, wrapped their Bihar visit.
The CEC on Sunday asserted that the special intensive revision in Bihar "purified" the voters' list after 22 years, and said many new initiatives were being undertaken for the upcoming assembly polls, which would be replicated across the country in due course.
Kumar addressed a press conference before winding up a two-day tour of the state, where he received feedback from representatives of political parties and discussed poll preparedness with officials.
“With the successful completion of SIR, the voters’ list in Bihar has been purified. It is after a gap of 22 years that such a cleansing has taken place. The exercise will now be conducted across the country,” Kumar said.
The CEC also spoke of a number of “initiatives” that were being introduced in polls to the 243-strong Bihar assembly, which had “38 constituencies reserved for Scheduled Castes and another two for Scheduled Tribes”.
These initiatives, “which will be replicated across the country in due course”, include a new standard operating procedure to ensure that EPIC cards are delivered to voters within 15 days of registration, and a mobile deposit facility at polling booths.
“In order to prevent overcrowding of polling stations, it has been decided that no booth shall have more than 1,200 voters. To make the voting exercise easier for the electors, mobile deposit facility is being introduced at booths,” Kumar said.
“Other new features include 100 per cent webcasting at all polling booths and mandatory verification of VVPAT slips in case of complaints of mismatch in EVM data,” he said. He also made it clear that the election process will be completed before the end of the Assembly's term on November 22.
“We have also been urging political parties to ensure that they appoint polling agents, at all booths, as well as counting agents so that all are satisfied that elections have been held in a transparent manner,” the CEC said.
Kumar said the names of 65 lakh voters had been struck off prior to publication of the draft roll in August.
“Another 3.66 lakh names were removed during the month-long period of claims and objections that followed. Those whose names have been removed were found declared ineligible as they were either not citizens of the country, or were dead, or had migrated elsewhere or had their names registered at more than one place,” he said.
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